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After a 16 year break from Coarse Angling I re-ignited my passion for fishing in 2010. Follow my journey from tackle selection, new methods, old and new venue's. All the blanks and bags captured. Thanks for stopping by...

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The last match of the year for me and an outing to Lawn Farm near Cambridge with the Facebook Angling League guys. Lawn Farm has been quite kind to me this year although the very cold weather lately made me think that today would be a tough day.

I'd pinged Amer Jawad who is a local (although not for much longer) regular at Lawn Farm for some advice as I'd not been on the bank for a few months to get some tips. Amer certainly helped my day, so thanks Amer!

The Draw
A couple of now shows, although the best no show was Glen who thought the match was on the Sunday, not the Saturday! Luckily Paul Law who was getting a lift from Glen arrived with another angler. On the plus side at least Glen didn't turn up at some ungodly hour at Paul's place on the Sunday!

Peg 27 came out the bag for me which I was happy about. The peg is on the spit at the back of the lake and gave me open water and the island to go for.

I'm very lucky to have another masterclass with Bob Nudd. Big thanks to my good lady Jo who bought me this surprise present. This would be my second time out with Bob.

Bob called me well in advance to discuss what I'd like to do for the day. First option was going to be a river somewhere as I tend to mainly fish commercial venues my other option was to learn to fish a big natural water fishing at distance using braid for big bream.
So the day was set and the location agreed upon was Gunwade Lake, Ferry Meadows in Peterborough.
I called my fishing buddy Mark up to see if he wanted to come along too which was very timely as he'd just had a day with Bob and his father in-law.
We met Bob in the car park and took our gear down to Pegs 39 and 40 so not too long a walk. Set-Up - Rods and Reels
Big casts, heavy rigs need substantial gear. I was using a 13 foot Daiwa Tournament RS Feeder rod coupled with a Daiwa Cast'izm 25 QDA loaded with guru Pulse 8 braid.
I'd lent M…

Day 2 of the festival. A great night out with some of the lads in Epping at a fantastic Turkish restaurant where the food came in absolute abundance which wasn't helped by Simon pilling more and more food onto my plate!

For a change heads were reasonably clear and we arrived to a beautiful overcast day at the fishery. Section winners yesterday were Stephen Daniels, Chris Vandervleit, Andy Gregory and Paul Law so these lads would be wanting a great draw and to be in a section preferably without the others!

The Draw
Once again Chris let me draw for him, mainly as he was holding the bag with the pegs in them. Out came peg 36, something which he was very happy about!

My draw, I'd be on Peg 7, again on the right hand bank although with a great margin line clear of other anglers to my left. Colin Bartlett, fishery owner drew peg 8 next to me. Now there is a rule that if you draw next to Colin it's a fiver, not the normal pound so we I had to do well.

Following the success of last years two day event at Lake John in Waltham Abbey, Carl had secured the venue again so it was definitely a not to be missed event. Everyone gathered at the cafe for some breakfast however with one exception, Hathers. Unlucky for Hathers he had got stuck behind an accident on the M25, one which shut the motorway for a couple of hours and to top it all he was one of the first cars behind the rolling roadblock put in place while they cleared everything up.

Pemb Writing and Matt Godfrey were also in the cafe to do some filming for Guru on the small lake. That is definitely on of the things about angling, you mix with the sports superstars in a way unlike the sports.

The Draw
Chris Vandervleit asked me to draw for him top which he ended up with Peg 2, which by the reaction of the other anglers wasn't the best draw in the world but we all know that Chris is a top angler and that the results would speak for themselves.

A trip to Manchester to see all the North West lads and another new fishery to try out. Jim Manc had organised a small match at Moss Farm Fisheries in Irlam, Manchester. Now the journey from London would have been quite a long one so I decided to travel up on the friday and join some of the lads for a curry in Media City.

Friday isn't the best day to be travelling and so it took me a long 5 hours to trek up from the countries capital however a great night was assured and to top that Herbie had organised some top accommodation for us both! Cheers Herbie.

The next morning we all gathered at the fishery were we where treated to a great breakfast although I didn't go the whole hog as I was pretty full from the night before!

The Draw
Today we were on Madison's lake, yes it sounded like a nightclub from Middlesbrough to me however all the lakes were named after ladies. The fancied draws were most definitely the corner pegs. I was lucky enough to be first to draw and peg 1 …

The Munkees were ahead of the Shandies and we only needed a few wins to get the overall result for the northern contingent. The previous night we were "treated" to a bit of Twisted Biscuit, Sconey's band. What a great nights entertainment however there was one gentleman who didn't really appreciate the music and was seen with napkins stuffed in his ears. I missed the opportunity to grab a photograph.

The Draw
I certainly didn't want Pool 4 despite yesterdays great result. I was more than happy when Pool 1, Peg 2 came out of the bag however, I had Peg 1 to beat which was fishing very well!

Set-up
Peg 2 is a know feeder peg and the far bank had been cleared as the gap between the reeds was pretty clear to see however it would take some good casting to plop it in the right area. As yesterday I decided to set up the feeder rod, bomb and pellet (just in case), a 5 metre pole line and I had a pretty good margin to my right hand side underneath a tree.